Special Report: The junior resources space this year paints an interesting picture. Despite some macro negative sentiment, the better stories are still able to raise money, drill their projects, and importantly – make discoveries.

The early December Resources Rising Stars (RRS) Summer Series conferences in Sydney and Brisbane — featuring 22 presenting small cap resources companies — were packed to the rafters with +700 investors.

For investors, that discovery phase is where some of the biggest returns come from.

Just look at the crazy share price action on Alkane Resources (ASX:ALK), Stavely Minerals (ASX:SVY) and now Legend Mining (ASX:LEG) since making their potentially company making discoveries.

READ: Barry FitzGerald — Has Legend found another Nova?

 

The only way to make a discovery like this is via the drill bit, and there’s a number of explorers looking to make the next big find in 2020.

But with +600 resources companies on the ASX, how do investors sort the wheat from the chaff?

The best way for investors to unearth that next multi-bagger stock is to meet management face-to-face, says RSS.

Pin them down for a chat; ask the important questions.

The upshot is that despite weak market sentiment for ‘riskier’ exploration stocks, discerning investors are still strongly supporting a number of companies either embarking on, or midway through, some very pivotal drilling programs.

These include Gateway Mining (ASX:GML), which has kicked off an 11,000m drilling blitz to grow its 240,000oz Gidgee gold project in WA.

NSW porphyry hunter DevEx (ASX:DEV) has just finished drilling its Bogong project – where a historic intercept of 55m at 1 per cent copper, from surface, was never followed up; until now.

Drilling at the nearby Junee project also kicks off in early 2020.

Resources & Energy (ASX:REZ) has embarked on a ~3000m drilling program over its historic, high-grade East Menzies project in WA.

And 10,000m of drilling is underway at Centaurus Metals’ (ASX:CTM) high-grade Jaguar nickel discovery in Brazil, where the first three drill holes have already intersected multiple shallow high grades up to 9.06 per cent nickel, 0.55 per cent copper and 0.40 per cent cobalt.

The list goes on.

At the same time, the best-looking project development stories are still raising money to progress their projects, which similarly suggests that things are not as gloomy as everyone thinks.

For example, battery metals sentiment is at an all-time low and yet some of the year’s bigger raisings have come from lithium players.

In 2019, producer Pilbara Minerals (ASX:PLS) raised $169m total, while advanced explorers ioneer (ASX:INR) and Liontown (ASX:LTR) raised $40m and $23m respectively.

Investors are also injecting cash into exciting development stories, like 2.7-million-ounce gold play Bardoc (ASX:BDC) with $27m and near-term copper zinc producer Orion (ASX:ORN) with $9m.

 

This story was developed in collaboration with Read Corporate, a Stockhead advertiser at the time of publishing.
This story does not constitute financial product advice. You should consider obtaining independent advice before making

 

 

 

 

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